BOSTON – Through the first two periods of Game 1 against the Red Wings on Friday, the Bruins had gotten just six shots from their top six forwards.

While they created a few more scoring chances in the third, including one where Milan Lucic came close to redirecting a shot from Jarome Iginla past Jimmy Howard, the Bruins didn’t quite get what they needed from the forwards they depend on most on Friday.

“It’s two teams that play pretty solid systems and they stick to it,” Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron said. “There wasn’t much on both sides of the ice. And that’s it. We’re going to have to expect that for the rest of the series and find ways to create some offense.”

Of the top six forwards, only David Krejci and Bergeron got multiple shots through to the net, with two apiece. Jarome Iginla had two attempts, one of which was blocked.

Part of the problem was that the Bruins had trouble entering the offensive zone cleanly, frequently dumping the puck in and chasing it instead of carrying it in to create better scoring chances.

“I think both teams can say that there was a dump and chase on both sides there,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “That’s the way teams play such good defense in the neutral zone, that if you try and create too much, you’re going to end up turning pucks over. So I think both teams respect that part of the other team’s element and understand that you can’t force things through the neutral zone.”

“It was tight, so we have to find a way,” Krejci said. “We have to come down on the breakout. Forwards will get it and come up the ice as a line, all three guys with the same speed. I don’t think we did that. It was pretty tight in the neutral zone. We have to look at the video tomorrow and make some adjustments.”

The Red Wings’ defense is not among the league’s elite groups, but they did the job on Friday. Niklas Kronwall led all Wings with 23:18 on the ice, but Danny DeKeyser also carried a heavy load and handled it well, playing 22:32 and making a few key defensive plays against the Bruins’ top line. In fact, Lucic seemed to take exception to DeKeyser’s play, giving him a shot behind the play in the second period.

Both Bergeron’s and Krejci’s lines are made up of defensively responsible players, and they helped limit the Wings to 24 shots, with the only goal coming on an impressive individual effort by Pavel Datsyuk.

While they helped limit offensive chances to some extent, though, they didn’t create them the way they have throughout the year. Fifty-eight percent of the even-strength shot attempts on Friday belonged to the Red Wings, indicating a lack of possession for the Bruins.

“We didn’t have the puck enough, and when we have it, we’ve got to start putting pucks in the areas where we can get them back, and we’ve got to get pucks in areas where once we get it, we can hang on to it,” Julien said. “And tonight, I thought we didn’t play with the puck as much as we normally do.”

The Bruins’ third line had a better game, taking advantage of more favorable matchups. Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg had three shots apiece, tied for a team high, and generated a few of the Bruins’ best scoring chances midway through the third as they pursued rebounds in front of Howard.

Julien said he was encouraged by the third period despite the outcome of the game.

“I thought we got better and better as the periods went on,” Julien said. “The third period was obviously our best period, but we started playing more of our game in the third period than in the first two. So we’ve got to kind of make those adjustments here and hopefully have three periods more like the third period was, and capitalize on the chances that we had.”